Accumulation of anthropogenic litter (i.e. garbage; AL) and its ecosystem effects in marine environments are well documented. Rivers receive AL from terrestrial habitats and represent a major source of AL to marine environments, but AL is rarely studied within freshwater ecosystems. Our objectives were to 1) quantify AL density in urban freshwaters, 2) compare AL abundance among freshwater, ter...

We review approaches to characterize metabolic interactions within microbial communities using Stoichiometric Metabolic Network (SMN) models for applications in environmental and industrial biotechnology. SMN models are computational tools used to evaluate the metabolic engineering potential of various organisms. They have successfully been applied to design and optimize the microbial productio...

Phage and their bacterial hosts are the most abundant and genetically diverse group of organisms on the planet. Given their dominance, it is no wonder that many recent studies have found that phage-bacteria interactions strongly influence global biogeochemical cycles, incidence of human diseases, productivity of industrial microbial commodities, and patterns of microbial genome diversity. Unfor...

Diverse effects of the microbiome on solid organ transplantation are beginning to be recognized. In allograft recipients, microbial networks are disrupted by immunosuppression, nosocomial and community-based infectious exposures, antimicrobial therapies, surgery, and immune processes. Shifting microbial patterns, including acute infectious exposures, have dynamic and reciprocal interactions wit...

This review explores a coevolutionary framework for the study and management of disease-suppressive soil microbial communities. Because antagonistic microbial interactions are especially important to disease suppression, conceptual, theoretical, and empirical work on antagonistic coevolution and its relevance to disease suppression is reviewed. In addition, principles of coevolution are used to...

Interactions between microbial species are sometimes mediated by the exchange of small molecules, secreted by one species and metabolized by another. Both one-way (commensal) and two-way (mutualistic) interactions may contribute to complex networks of interdependencies. Understanding these interactions constitutes an open challenge in microbial ecology, with applications ranging from the human ...

Adverse health effects have been associated with dampness and microbial exposure in buildings, but the possible pathophysiological mechanisms behind these effects are still poorly understood. Although previous studies have shown that certain microbes and microbial components have clear inflammatory and cytotoxic potentials, the complex mixture of microbial species, their spores, metabolites and...